Medical thriller about mentally handicapped patients dying. The CDC, Nate McCormick, becomes involved in solving what is killing the people and how. Considering this was a book I picked up at a book exchange at a campground, I really found it interesting. It was a bit slow in places, and a bit technical in others, but suspenseful. ( )

Just an okay book. I really got lost in all the medical talk and it ruin my experience. It was needed as that's what this book is all about. I just wish it had been put more in layman terms as I pretty much skipped through those parts and ended up feeling somewhat confused because of that. ( )

"It's been a lot of years since a young medical student named Michael Chrichton created a brand-new genre with "Andromeda Strain," and since then not too many people have managed to join him in the ranks of medical thriller writers. Well, make some room. Joshua Spanogle - another young medical student - has written a topical, compelling, and terrific first novel. Isolation Ward is smart, it's surprising, it's challening, and it's destined to be the foundation for a long career"

Wikipedia in English

Straight out of today’s hospitals and labs–and tomorrow’s headlines–comes a frightening, scalpel-sharp thriller from medical insider Joshua Spanogle. In an astounding debut, Spanogle takes us on an all-too-real race against time…as a young doctor enters the dark side of scientific research, desperate to stop a terrifying epidemic before it is too late….

In Baltimore’s St. Raphael’s Hospital, three newly admitted patients are among society’s most helpless citizens: female residents of Baltimore’s group homes for the mentally impaired, their bodies racked by a virus the likes of which no one at St. Raphael’s has ever seen.

Dr. Nathaniel McCormick is one of the first on the scene. A young investigator from the Centers for Disease Control, Nate is paid to explore the bizarre, the exotic, and the baffling–from superviruses to bioterrorism. But as soon as Nate begins to investigate the lives and habits of the victims, he knows something is terribly wrong. Using all his skills as a medical detective, Nate soon zeroes in on the “vector”–the one person who had sexual contact with the first victims. And when that suspect is found murdered, Nate fears that the disease he’s chasing may not be an act of nature, but of man.

With his brash style angering his superiors and fellow investigators alike, Nate turns to an old colleague and former lover, Dr. Brooke Michaels, for help. Together the two investigators follow a twisting trail of clues to a discovery that is at once groundbreaking and unspeakable. And as a circle of treachery tightens around him, Nate is about to confront the most chilling revelation of all–and a past Nate himself has been trying to escape.

At once a taut medical thriller and a riveting psychological portrait of a young doctor on the edge, Isolation Ward is a tale of runaway tension–with a brilliant “what-if” premise that is harrowing…heartbreaking…and impossible to wrench from your imagination.

When three female residents of Baltimore's group home for the mentally impaired are admitted to St. Raphael's Hospital with an unknown virus Dr. Nathaniel McCormick, an investigator from the CDC discovers that something is terribly wrong. The man who had sexual contact with the women is found murdered and Nate fears that the disease he's chasing may not be an act of nature, but of man. Together with Dr. Brooke Michaels an old colleague and former lover they follow the trail of clues to discovery.… (more)